Hi Mary & Squad
At the risk of putting a large male foot in an overactice mouth, I'd like to comment
on what you've said in your post.
MARY:
> I have a confession to make. I have never been able to read "Lila" all the
> way through. Can you guess why? It is because I am a woman.
That doesn't seem to have stopped the other women members of the Lila Squad,
so it would seem that there must be additional reasons aside from gender.
MARY:
> Obviously to me, paragraph 3 is intended to mitigate the misogyny of
> paragraph 2. Lila is defined as a drunken whore, not worthy of our
> compassion.
Nope! I've re-read the passage several times and I can't spot the hatred towards
women in the passage. But as this is from a male perspective I could easily be
wrong.
> What are Pirsig's motives? My first thought is to give him the
> benefit of a doubt. He must be just using this hackneyed device to set the
> stage for the reader. But does he really believe his readers are so dumb?
I sincerely doubt it. Nor do I believe that Pirsig is so dumb.
> Is it really necessary to open the book with the central female character
> portrayed as so shallow and contemptible? Doesn't he realize that he has
> just struck at women with the most heinous blow western society has to
> offer?
What Pirsig appears to be doing is, as you say, setting the stage for much of the
rest of the book. In ZATAOMM the loser device is Phaedrus (Pirsig) who is
portrayed as the sad loony who blew it. In Lila this role goes to Lila Blewitt, but
Phaedrus is still portrayed as a bit sad (although less so). The reason she
appears as a loser and (possibly) why Pirsig treats her in this way is to illustrate
the low Quality of the Objective (read Male) view of promiscuous, self abusive
women. The main protagonist of this view is Rigel (who represents the epitome of
rigid, judgemental, Victorian social moral values) who, having accepted the view of
Women raised onto pedestals by Men then proceeds to demolish them for not
conforming to the social moral value thrust upon them by Men. Phaedrus' search
for an answer to the question "Does Lila have Quality", posed by Rigel, looks at
the Rigellian view from a Quality perspective and rejects it. The ".. most heinous
blow..." section above is part of the traditional western viewpoint which blows this
perspective out of all proportion in relation to the other feminine qualities. I believe
that it is the Quality view that wiil re-organise and re-order this view.There is also
the analogy between the Lila of mythology to consider, but I won't go into that for
the moment.
MARY:
> With few exceptions, almost all of the Lila Squad contributors are men.
Because it is on the Internet and the majority of Internet users are, apparently,
male it is fairly predictable that this would be so. That's not good, in my opinion,
and will hopefully change over time.
MARY:
> Let's not bring Diana into this since she has defined her role to be our
> leader, director, and synthesizer of the MoQ.
Which seems to me to be the best reason for bringing Diana into this. The most
prominent and astute member and founder of the Lila Squad is a Woman. Without
her it is very doubtful that we would be talking to each other. I think this speaks
volumes.
MARY:
> Now the MoQ is very worthy of
> discussion. I have only the highest regard for Pirsig's efforts; but, it
> has thusfar been a primarily masculine exercise.
As the word spreads this will, hopefully, change. In the meantime the best course
is to try and keep a quality perspective and not a female/male/biology perspective.
MARY:
> If the goal is to clarify
> and synthesize the MoQ so that it is understandable to those who have not
> read Pirsig's work, nor had the time or inclination to think about it for a
> year if they had; then we have a problem.
I think the basis for the MoQ is easily understood by anyone with a simple
explanation. It's the minutiae which cloud the issues sometimes, but this is a
Philosophical problem (Intellectual) not a Male/Female (Biological) one.
Horse
"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.
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